Rat brains, MATLAB, and CSS (part 1)

Katy posed a question a few Sundays ago: “What is the grossest/most unpleasant thing you’ve ever done?” Most answers around the Sunday School room (yes, during Sunday School) revolved around feces and the like. My response was a little different — I shared about how I held a research job at CHLA killing rats. This got me thinking: I’ve acquired an odd mixture of skills/experiences over these years. One was not for the faint of heart, some are quite discipline-specific, and others are quite mundane. But a good number of them I care not to repeat in any future job function/endeavor/general life experience. So here goes, the first portion of my skillset: Neuroscience/Cognitive Science. (Reader beware, first item might not be very appetizing.)

• I was proficient at harvesting rat brains. The practice involved putting the rat to sleep, decapitating them with a guillotine-like device, breaking their skulls with a plier (one cut above each eye socket, and one in the back), and digging out the brain with a spatula. (One must be careful when shoveling for the brain, for if the right nerve was stimulated, the rat jaw snaps.) Then I proceeded to cut the brain into thin slices for experimental use. Definitely not repeating
• I’m good at putting a EEG net onto human subjects for the purpose of recording brain waves. In my lab in college, we used a cap, and filled electrodes on the cap with conducting gel. The whole process took about 1.5 hrs. Now, here in grad school, we’ve advanced to a net of electrodes that can be applied in about 20 minutes. Prefer not to repeat after I graduate
• I use MATLAB to program experimental stimuli and to analyze EEG data. We generate plots. Lots of plots. Lots and lots of plots. If only the generation of naming schemes to accomodate a myriad of plot permutations were a notable skill. Looking to transfer said skill set
• If this were my resume, I would probably include the obligatory data analysis, critical thinking, and writing skills. But I don’t suppose those are particular worth describing here. Don’t mind applying said skill set

Read part 2